Adopt A Composer

We were thrilled that Camden Symphony Orchestra was chosen to participate in Making Music's Adopt A Composer scheme for 2019-2020, and to welcome Claire Victoria Roberts as our Composer-in-Residence for the year. The original plan was to work with Claire during our 2019-2020 season, and premiere her new work at our 40th Anniversary Concert in November 2020. Due to the global pandemic, these plans were inevitably put on hold but we're delighted that we will finally be able to premiere Claire's piece, written especially for us, in July 2022.

Since 1935, Making Music has supported and championed leisure-time music groups across the UK with practical services, artistic development opportunities and by providing a collective voice for its members. Representing over 3,600 groups of around 200,000 musicians of all types, genres and abilities, Making Music helps them with the practicalities of running their group so they can get on with making music.

The Adopt A Composer project bring together music groups and composers to collaborate on creating a brand new piece of music. The project pairs leisure-time music groups with a composer for a year, culminating in a premiere performance, a recording and a possible radio broadcast. The composer has the opportunity to get to know a performing group and write a piece especially for them, while the group has the chance to contribute to the creation of a new work by some of the UK's most promising composers. Visit Making Music to find out more.

Claire Victoria Roberts studied music at Oxford University, and has an MMus in violin performance from the Royal Northern College of Music and PhD in composition from Bangor University. Claire has written for artists including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Zubin Kanga, Anne Denholm, Gary Farr (BBC Philharmonic), The Fidelio Trio and Simon Desbruslais. Find out more about Claire at clairevictoriaroberts.com.

Claire is being mentored by the composer Colin Riley. Colin's music draws on new technologies, improvisation, song-writing and large-scale classical form. A disc of his chamber music was released on NMC in 2018. Recent works include a double cello concerto and his song-cycle/album In Place. He is currently writing a piece for Ensemble Bash and a violin concerto for Philippa Mo. As well as being Senior Lecturer in Music at Brunel University and a long-standing mentor for Making Music's Adopt A Composer scheme, Colin runs his own label and writes a regular blog called Riley Notes. Find out more about Colin at colinriley.co.uk.

Camden Symphony Orchestra will be working with Claire during our 2021-2022 season, picking up where we left off in March 2020, and we look forward to premiering her new work at our Summer Concert on Saturday 2nd July 2022.

Adopt A Composer is run by Making Music in partnership with Sound and Music, and is funded by the PRS Foundation and the Philip & Dorothy Green Music Trust.